Berkeley Talks

"If having a gun really made you safer, then America would be one of the safest countries in the world. It’s not," said Gary Younge, a professor of sociology at Manchester University and former editor-at-large at the Guardian, in a lecture at UC Berkeley on March 4, 2020."Yet while Americans consistently favor more gun control," Younge continued, "gun laws have generally become more lax. That is partly due to the material resources of the gun lobby. But it is also about the central role of the gun, what it represents in the American narrative, and the inability of gun control advocates to develop a counter-narrative. ... When the national narrative is a story of conquering, dominating, force and power, a broad atavistic attachment to the gun can have more pull than narrower rational arguments to contain it."Listen to the lecture and read a transcript on Berkeley News.Detail of a mural by Kyle Holbrook and local youth in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Terence Faircloth via Flickr) See ac...

Abdi Soltani, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California, discussed on Feb. 18, 2022, key moments for voting rights and elections throughout U.S. history, current threats to voting that are unfolding across the country and work the ACLU is doing in California.Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News.Follow Berkeley Talks and review us on Apple Podcasts.Music by Blue Dot Sessions.AP photo by Morry Gash. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In Berkeley Talks episode 144, Mother Jones senior editor Michael Mechanic joins Berkeley Journalism professor David Barstow to discuss his new book, Jackpot: How the Super-Rich Really Live — and How Their Wealth Harms Us All.This conversation was streamed live on May 4, 2022.Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News.Follow Berkeley Talks and review us on Apple Podcasts.Music by Blue Dot Sessions. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

InBerkeley Talksepisode 143, a panel of UC Berkeley experts discuss climate displacement — what it means to abandon places, the power dynamics between the Global South and the Global North, challenges for both the sending and receiving regions, and what needs to happen to address this fast-growing problem.Panelists include faculty members from Berkeley's new cluster in climate equity and environmental justice:Maya Carrasquillo, civil and environmental engineeringDaniel Aldana Cohen, sociologyZoe Hamstead, city and regional planningDanielle Rivera, landscape architecture and environmental planning Moderated by Karen Chapple, director of Berkeley’s Urban Displacement Project and the University of Toronto’s School of CitiesThis April 25 event is part of Cal Performances' Illuminations: Place and Displacement series.Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News.Follow Berkeley Talks and review us on Apple Podcasts.Photo by Pablo Paredes.Music by Blue Dot Sessions. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In a special episode, Timnit Gebru,founder and executive director of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute and one of the most prominent researchers working in the field of ethics in artificial intelligence, gives the keynote address to the UC Berkeley School of Information graduating class on May 16. In the speech, Gebru touches on collective action, interconnectedness and the loneliness that may accompany standing on “the right side of history.”Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News.Follow Berkeley Talks and review us on Apple Podcasts.Photo by Noah Berger.Music by Blue Dot Sessions. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In Berkeley Talks episode 141, a panel of scholars discuss the work of Roman Vishniac, a renowned Russian American photographer who took thousands of photos over seven decades and across three continents.Although Vishniac’s genres were diverse, he’s best known for images that he took of Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe before the Holocaust.“These photographs are distinguished by their epiphenomena, the life circumstances of their subjects and the narratives that have surrounded these images,” said Jeffrey Shandler, professor of Jewish studies at Rutgers University, at a two-day event in May presented by The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life in collaboration with Berkeley’s Center for Jewish Studies. “Shortly after these photographs were taken, most of the Jews they depict met a terrible fate during World War II. Those few who survived the Holocaust had to start their lives over in radically different circumstances."Listen to the episode and read a transcript on...

In episode 140 of Berkeley Talks, a panel of student loan experts discuss the Public Service Loan Forgiveness waiver, the recently extended COVID payment pause and student debt cancellation.Panelists of this April 2022 talk included:Kat Welbeck, Student Borrower Protection CenterSuzanne Martindale, California Department of Financial Protection and InnovationKyra Taylor, National Consumer Law CenterModerated by Amanda Prasuhn, Berkeley Law Financial Aid OfficeListen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News.Follow Berkeley Talks and review us on Apple Podcasts.Music by Blue Dot Sessions.Photo by Elena Zhukova. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In episode 139 of Berkeley Talks, Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO and Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General for Sustainable Energy for All, gives the UC Berkeley Energy and Resources Group's 28th Annual Lecture on Energy and Environment. In the March 31, 2022 talk, Ogunbiyi discusses how to drive a just, inclusive and equitable transition to affordable and sustainable energy for all, and how the Russia-Ukraine war is affecting energy markets around the world.Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News.Follow Berkeley Talks and review us on Apple Podcasts.(Photo by Bamas100 via Wikimedia Commons) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In Berkeley Talks episode 138, Harry Edwards, a renowned sports activist and UC Berkeley professor emeritus of sociology, discusses the intersections of race and sport, athletes' struggle for definitional authority and the power of sport to change society."You can change society by changing people's perceptions and understandings of the games they play," said Edwards in March at a campus event sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues and Cal Athletics. "I'm saying whether it's race relations in America, whether it's relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and China, whether it's what's going on in South Africa with apartheid, you can leverage sport to change people's perceptions and understandings of those relationships. Change society by changing people's perceptions and understandings of the games they play."Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News.Follow Berkeley Talks and review us on Apple Podcasts.(Photo courtesy of Harry...

The Department of African American Studies at UC Berkeley’s 2021-22 Critical Conversations speaker series is a celebration of the life and legacy of June Jordan, an award-winning poet, activist and longtime professor in the department.At Berkeley, Jordan founded the Poetry for the People program, where writers of all levels wrote and showcased their own poems, and taught poetry to other university students, high school students and community members.In this episode of Berkeley Talks, two Berkeley alumni and former students of Poetry for the People — Samiya Bashir, an associate professor of creative writing at Reed College, and Solmaz Sharif, an assistant professor of English at Arizona State University — read their work, share some of their favorite poems by Jordan, and discuss the Poetry for the People program and the impact it continues to have on their lives.The Feb. 28 conversation was moderated by Chiyuma Elliot, a poet and associate professor in the Department of African Am...